Kansas City recycles

Kansas City trash service varies from city to suburb. For most of the area, residents choose their own waste removal services from a list of approved residential providers. Most of the companies charge a small quarterly fee for weekly residential recycling service, which is usually less than $10 per month.

Some families who have already chosen to add recycling to their weekly trash pickup service are not fully utilizing the service. Deffenbaugh Industries uses its website to offer its customers guidance on what types of goods to recycle. A partial list is reprinted below.

Newspaper

Office paper

Telephone books

Envelopes

Junk mail

Magazines and catalogs

Aluminum cans

#1-#7 Plastics (usually labeled on the bottom)

Be sure to tear the name and address portion off of any mail-related items to reduce the risk of identity theft.

A few of the unacceptable items listed as follows.

Glass

Automotive product bottles

Drink pouches

Egg cartons

Gift wrap

Books

Plastic bags

Shredded paper

For comprehensive lists of acceptable and unacceptable recyclable goods, visit Deffenbaugh’s website. The specifics may vary from company to company; check with your trash removal service for a complete listing.

Be a good example to your children by recycling as much in your household as possible. It can be fun to see how much your family can reduce your trash.

Angela, thank you for the suggestion! I added the link to the list of Kansas City Recycling Resources.

One of my favorite websites earth911.com suggests ripping off the oil and food saturated portions of the pizza box, then recycling the rest. That's the only solution I know of. If any readers have other ideas, please share!

Locally Olathe has just implemented city-wide recycling, which is also nice. Everyone has a bin, and everyone pays. I know it's encouraged my friends that didn't want to do it before (because of the cost) to jump on the bandwagon...more cities should take that approach. Best of all, my cost (from the previous opt-in method) actually decreased!

Cortney Jonas-Burnos is a married mother of two rambunctious boys. Her parenting philosophy is "Mother the Earth:" caring first for her own children, then the children of the world, and finally, the Earth itself. Share your green parenting ideas, favorite KC family hotspots or other ideas with Cortney by e-mailing Cortney.